The Ohio Stadium or “the shoe”, was officially done with construction and opened up in 1921. The stadium was originally designed by Howard Dwight Smith in 1918. For this creation Howard Smith was deservingly awarded the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for Public Building Design. The first game ever played in the stadium was against Ohio Wesleyan University on October 7th, 1922, with a final score of 5-0 in favor of the Buckeyes. Although the seating capacity was about 62,000 and only 25,000 people attended the game. This was not the case for the inaugural game in the stadium against the team up north, Michigan, which as we all know has become Ohio States biggest rival over the last century. This game quickly became the first sellout crowd for the Buckeyes in their new stadium. Unfortunately, OSU lost, ending their three-game winning streak. Nevertheless, this game was a very important game in Ohio States history as a football team.
One of the most memorable matchups held in this stadium happened in the year 1950 when the
Buckeyes hosted the Wolverines in what is now known as “the snow bowl”. This had to be one of the most bizarre games of football ever played. Michigan won 9-3 despite not completing one pass and only rushing for 27 yards, and the only touchdown of the game coming on a blocked punt. The game consisted of 45 total punts as it was just a battle for field possession. This game probably should have never been played, but it made for a pretty interesting moment in the Ohio Stadiums history.
After this came the Woody Hayes era of Ohio State football. At this point this stadium had already seen a lot of history be made, but it was time to start experiencing some real winning. Woody Hayes didn’t lose two times in row to Michigan for 27 years, winning 17 of his first 25. An interesting note on Hayes career is that the school’s faculty council actually denied Hayes to go to the rose bowl 1961 saying football had become too big at the school. This decision caused there to be riots on campus and was overall not great. Woody Hayes finished with a record of 205-61-10 with three national championship wins and 13 BIG10 titles and will go down as one of if not the greatest coach to ever coach in the Ohio Stadium.
This is the field in 1921 compared to the field in 1937. As you can tell from the picture it already had looked drastically better since it was almost done being built in 1921. The field was finished and had nice grass on it for the players to run on. It also had the entire top section of seats fully filled in and were completely done by 1937.